Faerie Path #6: The Charmed Return (16 page)

Chapter XXV

Tania felt the need to be alone with her thoughts the next morning. She left Jade to her tai chi exercises and made her way out to where the festivities were still being prepared.

She walked through the gardens and picked her way across the parklands, seeing all the activity but feeling detached from it—even when people smiled and bowed and spoke to her. It was uncanny how alone she felt, as if she was moving through the merry crowds in a bubble of private sadness.

She felt herself drawn toward the long sloping heaths where the knights of Faerie had made camp. Very bright and heroic their tents looked, and the knights among them, on horseback or sparring on foot, in their luminous, shelly armor or in bright-colored tabards.

But the knights of Gralach Hern disturbed her still. Their tents were of a somber dark red, and they had no pennants or standards. And there were now many more of them than before—tall and dark and as silent as stones, and each bore a sword of dark red crystal and carried a red shield, and the horses that they rode were midnight black.

How had they got here so quickly—all the way from the far north? And why did no one else seem bothered about them?

Tania turned on her heel and strode rapidly back to the Royal Apartments. She needed to speak with the King.

Tania found Oberon in his Privy Chamber, alone among sheaves of documents.

Good! I half expected Raphael Cariotis to be with him.

The King looked up from the piled documents as Tania came into the room. She noticed that the blue signet ring was missing from the forefinger of his right hand. Edric had indeed taken it to Weir as a token that he spoke for the King.

Edric, come back quickly. Come back safely.

“Tania, dearest child, welcome,” said the King, smiling warmly.

“Am I disturbing you?” she asked.

“Most excellently you are!” Oberon said with a laugh. “Master Raphael has set me much endeavor in the lead-up to the Pure Eclipse. I must read many documents and give signature to them, so he tells me, although I’d rather be elsewhere and engaged in sweeter delights.”

“Poor you.”

“’Tis naught,” said the King. “And I have had word from Admiral Belial that the
Cloud Scudder
is set and ready for the voyage to Tirnanog upon the eve of that glad day.”

“That’s good,” said Tania, moving to stand at her father’s side. “Is everything all right, do you think?”

The King looked up at her. “Do you fear for Master Chanticleer’s safety, child?” he asked.

“Yes, a little. I haven’t forgotten how much Lord Aldritch hates me, and I’ve been having really weird dreams. . . .”

He smiled. “Even in Faerie it is possible for a dream to be no more than a dream,” he said, his arm curling gently around her waist. “Fear no night noises, Tania; it is only the good spirits, their whispering voices. All is well in the realm of Faerie, and if Weir prove false, why, have we not knights enough to keep Lord Aldritch safe penned behind his own borders?”

Even in Faerie it is possible for a dream to be no more than a dream.
Titania’s exact words.

Her
exact
words!

“I’m worried about the men from Gralach Hern—there’s something not quite right about them, I think.”

“The folk of Prydein have ever been a curious breed,” said her father. “You know this, Tania—but they are loyal and brave, have no fear of that. If the time comes when drawn swords must take the place of spoken words, they will prove their worth to Faerie and to the House of Aurealis.”

“But there are so many of them, and I don’t understand how they are getting here so quickly. . . .”

“That is a question easily answered,” the King replied. “Master Raphael sent word to them some time ago.”

Rathina had said that!

Tania gently extricated herself from her father’s embrace. It was strange that no one seemed concerned about those sinister knights.

“Yes,” she said uncertainly, “I guess that must be what happened.” She gazed closely into the King’s face. He looked as he had always looked, with his golden hair and his close-cut beard and mustache and his deep, piercing blue eyes. “Do you feel all right?”

“I am a little weary of ancient texts!” he said with a quick smile. “And I’d have this matter with Weir settled.”

“No, I mean . . .” She frowned, touching her hand to his cheek. “You don’t feel like there’s something wrong . . . inside you, I mean?”

“Nay, child, all is well.”

She swallowed nervously. “Do you hear galloping horses?”

He frowned, and for a moment there was a flicker of something in his eyes. Something that came and went in an instant. The tiny, remote furling of red flame.

“Do not listen to the hooves,” he said.

“Hail and well met, sire, and also my lady Tania.” Raphael Cariotis’s voice came into Tania’s head like a whiplash.

The Guardian of the Precession of the Equinoxes was standing in the open doorway, a bundle of documents in his arms.

“Forgive me for intruding upon you, sire—my lady,” said Raphael. “I have letters and missives of greetings from many of your people, sire, and I know that you would wish to peruse them.” He smiled as he came into the room. “And I have certain other matters to discuss.”

“That’s fine,” said Tania. “I was just leaving anyhow.”

Master Raphael bowed as she passed him. “The noontide of the Pure Eclipse comes apace, my lady,” he said. “Mayhap you will be better prepared for the trials that are to come if you seek from Princess Eden another Traumlos glamour to give you a further night free of evil dreams?”

How did he know about that?

“Yes,” she said, feigning a smile. “I think I’ll do that.”

“Jade, please listen to me. I’m not crazy—there is definitely something going on here.”

They were in Tania’s bedchamber at the end of the day. Tania had not felt safe talking to her friend about her fears until she was certain they could not be overheard. Until they were entirely alone.

Jade sat cross-legged on the bed, her head tilted, face puzzled.

“Well, you’d know that better than me,” she said. “So, go on. Tell me what you think is going on?”

Tania was by the open window, the warm evening breeze in her hair, the air laden with sweet scents, the moon hanging low like a white shield on the starry sky.

“I don’t
know
!” Tania exclaimed. “That’s the whole point! I don’t know what’s going on. But people are acting really strange.”

“Which people in particular?”

Tania threw her arms up in exasperation. “Everyone! The King. The Queen. Eden. Sancha. Rathina—Titus! Raphael Cariotis.” She shook her head. “It’s like everyone I talk to is . . .”

“Yes?” Jade prompted.

“Is saying weird things . . .” Tania ended, aware of how lame this must sound to her practical friend. “Weird, coincidental things. And it’s like everyone is way too happy, you know? It doesn’t feel right. The plague wasn’t that long ago, and Cordelia is dead, but people are running around jousting and organizing fireworks and playing tag. It’s freaky—like everyone’s in a dream. . . .” She stared at Jade. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe this is all a dream?”

Jade shuffled to the edge of the bed. “Come here,” she said.

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

Tania approached her. Jade’s arm stabbed out, two fingers stiff and hard into Tania’s midriff. Tania folded over, stepping back again with a gasp.

“Ow! That hurt!”

“Still think you’re dreaming?” Jade asked.

“No!” Tania said, rubbing her stomach. “Definitely not,
thanks
!”

“You’re welcome,” said Jade. “That’s one explanation ruled out. So, what else could be causing you to think people are acting weird?”

Tania wracked her brains but came up empty.

Galloping hooves. Phrases, suggestions, and warnings being repeated by different people. Bad dreams. The feeling of being slightly out of synch with everyone around her. What did it all add up to?

“What if it’s not them? What if it’s you?” Jade suggested. “It could be something like post-traumatic stress disorder. You’ve been through some really hard times recently—do you think it could have scrambled your brains a little?”

“I hope not!”

“Maybe meeting your other selves was more disturbing than you thought? And that fight with Lear—that was way unnerving.” She looked at Tania. “Face it, any one of those things could have freaked you out . . . and all of them? I’m surprised you’re still coherent. Me? I’d be curled up in a fetal position under the bed!”

“So, you think it’s me, not them?”

“Are you certain it isn’t you?”

Tania stared at her. “I have no idea how to answer that.”

Jade pursed her lips. “Did you get Eden to give you another one of those no-dream whammies?”

“No.”

Jade’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“Yes, I know,” Tania said with sudden impatience. “Crazy girl with her crazy nightmares—give her a charm to put the lights out! But the thing is, I felt worse somehow this morning—worse for not having the dreams.” She looked fiercely at Jade. “Maybe I am losing it—you’re right. It’s not like I don’t have a good reason to be going out of my mind. But even if that’s the case, I still think those dreams are trying to tell me something.”

“Fair enough,” said Jade. “Then I suggest we get to bed and you take a trip to dreamland again.”

That was easier said than done. Jade was curled up snoring softly long before Tania even found the courage to close her eyes against the darkness.

And even then it felt as though a searchlight were strobing in her brain, banishing sleep, lighting up the inside of her head like a flashlight being shone in her eyes.

She’d never get to sleep.

Galloping hooves beyond a dark hillside. Boiling clouds blotting out the stars. A wind rushing through the trees, sounding like a thousand swords being unsheathed.

A solitary voice calling out of nowhere. “To war! To war!”

And then a dark tide of horsemen coming over the ridge, and at their head a tall figure holding a sword aloft.

Edric—clad all in black—leading the warriors of Weir into battle in the south.

He did not see her standing in the path of his galloping horse.

“Edric! No! It’s me! Stop! Please stop!”

She spread her arms, holding her ground as the charging warhorses ran her down. The first buffet knocked her sideways. She staggered, striking hard against the flank of another horse. And then another crashed into her, so that she stumbled and fell to her knees. The horses moved all around her like colossal monsters—hooves pounding so that the ground shook.

“Edric, no . . .”

A hoof came down like a hammer. Filling the world. Blotting out all life.

She was in a dark courtyard. A tall square tower reared up into the night, covered all over with red ivy. Birds circled the tower’s head, screaming and shrieking. Feathers rained down like black snow, their musty scent filling Tania’s head. They swirled around her, sticking to her skin, snagging in her hair as she flailed her arms to be rid of them. She was standing in a mire of dead and rotting birds. Slimy underfoot. Bones through feathers. Beaks and claws and dead, seeping eyes.

She heard a muffled voice chanting. There was the sharp chink of something hitting glass. She walked slowly around the corner and found a large round window of dirty, colored glass. She reached up—the lower curve of the sill was at the height of her chest. The voice was still there, behind the glass.

Tania reached up and wiped her hand across the window. A face stared out at her through a pane of bloodred glass.

An insane, grinning face with flaming eyes and teeth bared to bite and rip.

And then the tower was gone and she was staring into the poison green eyes of a woman with hair like flame and lips like blood and skin as white as bone.

Long red fingernails slashed at Tania’s cheek, drawing blood.

The woman’s voice hissed like a snake. “You will never know true happiness, child of the riven soul. Any happiness you do find will be nothing but an illusion!”

Chapter XXVI

“Wake up! Jade! Will you please wake up!”

Tania was wide-eyed in the gray dawn. Kneeling in a welter of bedclothes with her dreams shrouding her like winding sheets. Shaking the sleeping form of her friend.

Jade burst suddenly into life, floundering under the covers.

“What the . . . !”

“It’s me. I need you to come with me. Right now.”

“Tania!” Her voice was thick with sleep. “What time is it?”

“Almost dawn.” She stripped the bedclothes back. “I want us to go somewhere—before anyone else is up and about.”

Jade’s voice was suddenly sharp. “You found something out in a dream?”

“I think so.”

Jade bounced off the bed and dressed quickly. “Come on, then. What are we waiting for?”

Tania flung herself into her dress, and the two of them padded along the corridors and down the stairs. There was just enough light for them to see where they were going, and when they came out into an open courtyard, the sky was a grainy blue-gray.

The courtyard was long, cobbled, with a stone fountain in the center. No water was flowing and the fountain had an abandoned look. At the far end of the courtyard stood a square stone tower, ivy-grown, desolate . . . abandoned by all save the birds that roosted on its steep roof.

“This is the Dolorous Tower,” Tania told her friend.

“The one you’ve been dreaming about?” said Jade. She whistled between her teeth. “The one with the dead birds?”

“Yes, that one. The place everyone has been telling me to steer clear of ever since we came here.” Windows pocked the ivy-infested walls—but all were shuttered, and the sills were dark with birds.

There were no birds in the air. There was neither song nor calling. A thousand small dark eyes were on her. Watching and waiting.

Tania walked the length of the courtyard. She came to the foot of the tower. There were three gray stone steps leading to an overgrown door. A black door.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Yes!” Jade trailed after her as she walked to the corner of the tower.

“What?” Jade whispered. “What are we looking for?”

“That!” Tania said, pointing to the wide circular window, over which the ivy hung like long broken fingers. “The Oriole Glass.” She looked at Jade. “They’re calling this the Dolorous Tower—and that is its name; I remember now. But it hasn’t been abandoned for hundreds of years. The dreams helped me to remember the truth. All through the Great Twilight this was Eden’s home.” Her voice trembled. “She lived here alone—going a little crazy, I think. Until I came back to Faerie and she started to get better.”

“Okay,” Jade said, peering at her in confusion. “And this means what now?”

“It means everyone wants me to stay away from here, and I know for sure—for
certain
—that this tower is where Eden brews her mystical spells.” She turned to Jade. “Don’t you see? My dreams have been trying to warn me about this place. I told you everyone was acting weird—and there’s something in this tower that will explain why!”

“Something your sister Eden has done?” said Jade.

Tania stared at her. “There aren’t many people in Faerie who can do stuff this powerful,” she said. “My father, for sure—and maybe my mother as well. Valentyne and one or two others. And
Eden
!”

“You think she’s put a spell on
everyone
?” said Jade breathlessly. Her eyes widened in the growing light of day. “A spell to do
what
?”

“I don’t know,” Tania said.

“Maybe it’s a good spell, to make people feel better . . . you know?”

“Then why the deception?” Tania hissed, snatching hold of Jade’s arm and gripping tight. “Why did she need to poke those holes in my memory? Why wasn’t I supposed to know the truth about this place? Everyone’s been programmed to tell me to stay away.
Why?
” The thought that Eden might be behind all this gnawed at her heart. Eden had only ever used her powers for good in the past—if her sister had turned away from that, what could possibly have happened to change her?

A silvery light came over the sky, and from some distant place a cock crowed to welcome the new day. Sharp footsteps clacked on cobbles.

“Someone’s coming!” Tania said, her nails digging into Jade’s flesh. “We’re not safe here.” She pulled her friend along the wall and around to the back of the tower.

“Is it Eden?” Jade gasped. “Has she tracked us down with that magic mojo of hers?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Tania’s voice was hoarse and urgent. “But we need to get away.” The two of them ran from the courtyard, down a narrow alley where night still lingered, and across to a doorway.

Not until they had the closed and bolted door and two levels of stairs between them and the courtyard did Tania let them stop running.

“We can’t trust anyone,” Tania said. “We can’t go to anyone about this. We can’t confide in anyone. We have to assume everyone’s been contaminated with this thing—whatever it is.”

“Yes, I get it!” said Jade, prying Tania’s fingers off her arm. “So? Do you have a plan?”

“I think so,” said Tania. “Today we act totally normal—do all the things we’d usually do. We join in with the preparations and all that. And tonight, when everyone is in bed, the two of us go back to that tower, and we get inside. We find out exactly what’s in there.”

“I get it,” said Jade. “I’ve seen stuff like this in movies. The spell will be in a special magic jar or in a glow-y ball kind of thing—and all we have to do is find it and smash it and everything will be back to normal!”

Tania stared uneasily at her. “Something like that . . .” she said slowly. “If we’re lucky.” Tania remembered only too well the malevolent things that inhabited the walls of Eden’s sanctum—evil things that leered and spat and reached out with poisoned claws.

They were dangerous enough watchdogs when there was nothing special to guard—how much more of a peril would they be if a great spell was housed in the tower? Too great a peril for Tania to allow Jade to be harmed, that much was certain. No. When the time came, she’d find a way to give Jade the slip. She could not ask her friend to walk into that much danger.

But before then they had a day of pretense to get through.

A day when nothing they did must arouse suspicion.

The final day before the start of the festival of the Pure Eclipse.

* * *

For Tania the hardest part of that day of deception was the need to avoid Eden. She hated herself for suspecting her sister, and had too much respect for her powers to think she could look her in the eyes and not have her thoughts and suspicions peeled open and revealed to Eden’s piercing gaze.

She was so on edge that she felt as if a spotlight was shining down on her. In fact, it was only Jade’s presence constantly at her side that gave her the fortitude to get through the day.

But she did what she had to do. She moved among the people—greeting newly arrived nobility—even at one point, speaking briefly with Master Raphael, responding to his polite inquiry regarding her sleep the previous night.

“No bad dreams at all, thank you,” she had told him. And as far as it went, that was true—the dreams were terrible, but they were not
bad.
They had given her the key to discovering what was going on here . . . or so she hoped.

She tried not to dwell on what dark intentions could be driving Eden, if she truly was the person manipulating everyone around her. It was too agonizing to think that she had betrayed her whole family for some sinister, impenetrable purpose.

Or perhaps it’s for a good reason—perhaps she’s doing this for the benefit of Faerie. Perhaps it has to be done in secret or . . . or it won’t work?

Clutching at straws!

At one point sadness intruded into the festivities for Tania. She saw a woman standing alone watching some children playing. The woman’s head was half-covered by a shawl of white silk. It was Mallory, the mother whose infant boy had been the first victim of the plague.

“Give me a moment,” Tania asked Jade. She went and stood at Mallory’s side. The Faerie woman turned to her and a wan smile touched her lips.

“Will time heal my hurt, my lady?” she asked, searching Tania’s face.

“I don’t know.”

“I think not,” said Mallory. “But new gladness may ease the pain.” She pointed to a man in among the children. He was tossing them one by one into the air. Their wings whirred as they flew around his head, laughing and calling.

“That is my husband,” she said. “He is a good and loving man.” She touched her hand to her stomach. “My Gyvan is in Avalon, but new life stirs within me.”

“Oh, I’m so pleased,” said Tania.

“As am I,” Mallory murmured. She glanced sidelong at Tania. “You have great work ahead of you upon the morrow, my lady, when the Pure Eclipse comes.”

Tania nodded.

Mallory’s fingers touched cool for a moment against Tania’s hand. “The horses are galloping,” she said. “They will be here soon.”

Before Tania could respond, the woman stepped away from her and joined her husband among the children.

Tania watched her, the blood throbbing in her ears, then she turned away and went to look for Jade.

During the day, a flotilla of barges and small boats had been assembled along the bank of the Tamesis. As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, musicians filled several of the boats and pushed off onto the moving belly of the wide river.

In the growing twilight people gathered in the hundreds at the wharfs and jetties and quays of the palace, the excited throng gradually taking to the boats as the minstrels began to play.

Lanterns were set adrift on the river, lit by some mystical inner glow, circling and gliding on the darkening water, shedding light on the surface—pink and indigo, turquoise and beryl green, viridian and carmine, cerise and saffron—and where they collided or swung together in eddies, creating new unnamed colors that constantly blended and changed.

Tania and Jade climbed aboard a small narrow rowboat that was moored some distance from the main congregation of royal vessels. An oarsman in pale blue livery rowed them out into midstream. Tania could see the King’s great dark barge with its golden awnings and carved wooden cabin. The King and Queen were there, attended by servants as they sat at ease on deep wooden chairs. With them were the earl marshall Cornelius and his wife and two sons. Corin had recently arrived from Caer Ravensare with a contingent of knights to swell the armies on Salisoc Heath. Tania saw that Master Cariotis was also on the Royal Barge, along with Hopie and Lord Brython and Earl Valentyne.

The other princesses were on boats that gathered around the Royal Barge. Only Eden was missing.

Where is she?

All along the battlements and towers of the Royal Palace, light burned brightly in the growing twilight. And more torches burned along the banks of the river.

The sound of excited conversation and laughter mingled with the music as the water pageant made its gradual way upriver. Everyone was in their finest clothes, and each boat and barge contained a basket brim full of delicious foodstuffs and bottles of sweet Faerie cordial.

Moving with a languid grace on the river, the boats and barges were steered toward the single bridge that spanned the Tamesis. It was an arc of elegant white stone with a tall tower at either end. Torches were positioned along its curved span so their flickering lights were mirrored in the dark water.

The day had drained away in the far west, and now the night was full of stars. The moon hung in the north, pierced through by the black arrow of a steeple rising from the dark mass of the palace.

Now Tania saw Eden. She was standing at the apex of the bridge, dressed all in white so that with her pale face and her ashen hair, she looked like a marble statue as the vessels began to slide away into the shadows of the arch. But even under the bridge there was light—the glow from the floating lanterns illuminated the white stone of the underside to create a rippling rainbow of lambent colors.

Tania felt herself shrinking down in the belly of the boat as they approached the bridge. Jade’s hand closed reassuringly around her wrist. Neither spoke.

There was cheering now and applause as Eden lifted her alabaster arms into the sky. Like a white flame, she looked to Tania as their boat came closer and closer to the bridge. Against the dark of the sky Eden seemed to have grown huge and powerful as she stood on the bridge with her fingers pointing to the stars.

She’ll see us. She’ll know. She’ll put a spell on us, and that’ll be the end of everything.

But Eden’s face was turned upward, and although her lips were moving with some mystic incantation, the threads of rainbow light that unraveled from her fingertips went spinning up into the sky.

The music reached a crescendo, and the whole skyline of the Royal Palace was ablaze with fizzing and crackling fireworks. Curtains of red and gold and silver sparks rained down the walls; rosy mists rose with red fire at their hearts. Rockets shot skyward, roaring and whistling, curving so high that they mingled with the stars before exploding into crescents and arcs of blazing multicolored lights.